TRIGGER WARNING again! I get SUPER angry in this and VERY blunt about my rape. Please read with caution and STOP reading if you feel bad in any way. If you want, attack it when you’re stronger. Don’t hurt yourselves. x

So Mr Prat Dawkins has decided that he gets to comment on HORRIFIC experiences, lived through by REAL people in REAL situations. Apparently, he has some ‘science-given’ right to label what is ‘worse’ rape and what rape is ‘easier’ on those who experience it.

I cut off a friend for making rape jokes before. What I have done with a friend who so blatantly disrespected me was not done lightly, and if she ever needs my help in the future I’ll gladly offer it. But THIS-

Jesus Christ man.

YOU DO NOT HAVE A FUCKING VOICE IN THIS CONVERSATION.

You were not there when my ex told me to ‘fight him off’ because he was a ‘big, scary rapist’ coming to get me and the joke was wearing thin. You were not there when I was frightened, when I was scared for my life, when I had no idea why I hated myself and wanted to die.

You were not there during the insomnia, the nightmares that make me scream or cry out or reach for J. You are not there when I think I see my ex round the corner and my mouth turns dry, my head entering that hyperactive alert state.

You were not there when my memory came back to me at 11:30 or something one beautiful summer’s day, and left me literally bleeding again. I’d been trying to quit self harm and I cut because I wanted numbing relief again from the agony of remembering, but the cool knife and the pain didn’t do a goddamn thing.

I was not assaulted violently in a backalley by a stranger. I was assaulted by my PARTNER. He was supposed to CARE for me. He told me so many times a day that he loved me and would never hurt me, and I found myself hurting on more than a daily basis in that last year- emotionally and physically.

I carry internal scarring, I think, or why would I HURT when I remember certain things? Why is it that even now, if someone touches me and I didn’t want it, I can’t stand it and want to push their hand away? It doesn’t even matter sometimes if they mean it kindly. Some days I just cannot be touched.

I can’t hold my boyfriend’s hand sometimes because of what happened. I had to hold my ex’s hand all the time. It was like a physical tie of ownership: he would have dragged me around on a lead if he could. Sometimes he did. A friend of mine described seeing me walking down the road fucking HANDCUFFED to him.

I have this all floating around on the inside of my head on a daily basis. I have a lot to deal with in my healing, and I am sure parts of this are so deeply scarred I will not truly understand til I’ve really started with my therapy. Yes, Mr Dawkins, I have to go therapy. Really, you ask? Should you not have just ‘got over it’ by now, because you weren’t raped by a terrifying stranger in a dark alley?

You know what?

NO.

Let me tell you something, fuckwit.

I trusted my ex with my fucking life. I would have taken a bullet for him had he asked me to. He would occasionally be kind and sweet and thoughtful, and he was charismatic and intelligent, and when we first got together- Jesus, the compliments blew my mind. I thought I was in love. I thought I was being protected against horrible rapists in back alleys when I went out with him.

All this time, starting with when I was eighteen and he first did something sexually wrong to me, I was being abused. I was being hurt. I escaped to a jungle in my head and left my body behind. I was being brutally hurt by the one person who was supposed to CARE for me and PROTECT me. He was supposed to LOVE me, and he raped me.

I was raped by a man who professed to love me, and he never once saw any of it as rape because I never had a say. It didn’t matter if I said no. It was all white noise to him.

There, you see? THIS is why it is so fucking damaging when you are raped by your partner- that one person who was supposed to love you really thought so fucking little of you that he used you as his personal fucktoy then dumped you when he got bored. I was a rag doll to him. I was nothing but a set of holes he could use. Not even a person.

That’s why, Mr DORKins, you get no say in this, because you have no fucking CLUE how horrible it feels to be used like that. No clue at all. How DARE you even think you have a place to comment on rape?! It all hurts, and why are you trying to put quantative values on something you know nothing about?

Grow the fuck up and volunteer at a Women’s Refuge shelter. Listen to all the heartbreaking stories of pain and horror and fear, and then tell me if you have the same godawful opinion.

Because after all, rape victims are just statistics and intellectual debate fodder. It’s not as if we actually exist in the real world, or we feel pain, or suffer flashbacks, or hallucinations, or feel suicidal. It’s not like we don’t wake up feeling fucking grateful we’re not still lying in bed next to our rapist, or tell our new, lovely boyfriend when we’re sleepy that we are glad he is not our ex.

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4 comments on “TW: Richard ‘Fucktard’ Dawkins, Rape and my response.”

What is the deal the last few years with white men ranking rape? When did this become socially acceptable?

The fact that he did this as a supposed demonstration of logic is BS. I could easily blow holes in his logic. I mean, define “worse.” (In my head, I’m channeling this Irish professor I had who yelled at us in class: “What exactly do you mean? Define your terms!”) I don’t know of any states that differentiate in statutory law between date rape and stranger rape. There is often an enhanced charge for very violent assaults or assaults on minors, but that’s not what he argued. And date rape can be violent too.

And if we define “worse” in terms of psychological effect on the victim, there’s not necessarily a correlation between degree of violence and degree of emotional injury. In fact, like you said, it’s often harder to cope with being assaulted by someone you trusted than by a stranger because you have betrayal trauma on top of rape trauma.

I have to believe he chose rape as his example with the express intent of being provocative; that’s consistent with his general MO. If you want to demonstrate a syllogism with crime as your example, there are plenty of property crimes (i.e., crimes with much less emotional impact on victims) you can use. For example, “Stealing $20 from the cash register at work is bad. Stealing $500,000 from a bank is worse.” That would’ve successfully demonstrated a syllogism. But he chose rape because he knew it would generate a lot of backlash and therefore free publicity for him. It’s like how a lot of writers (almost all men, of course) use rape when they need something bad to happen to a female character, when other traumas would’ve worked just as well with the plot. It’s disgusting and contemptible.

Bang on, sister! I agree with you. You managed to talk intellectually about this horrible subject too whilst supporting everyone who’s had this happen to them, and confirming for me what I’ve always suspected: Dawkins is probably the world’s biggest narcissist. I suspect if someone did a psychological test on him, he’d rank up there with my ex on narcissistic and psychopathic traits, the pillock. Thank you for commenting, it means a lot. x